When looking at the preview for Bachelorette on Netflix, I initially assumed it would be the kind of light-hearted film that you watch on a Sunday afternoon when it’s raining and you’re wrapped up on the couch with a cup of tea. An unlucky- in-love career-woman is upset that her friend is getting married before her, but she overcomes her confidence issues to find love for herself, bolstered by the support of her two comic-relief friends (one of them sarcastic, one of them ditzy). A happy ending and a couple of safe laughs, all within the space of ninety minutes.
Boy, was I wrong.
Bachelorette does have the unlucky-in-love career woman – her name is Regan, and she’s played by Kirsten Dunst. Regan is jealous that her friend Becky (Rebel Wilson) is getting married before her, but Regan doesn’t overcome her confidence issues to find love herself (she doesn’t even have confidence issues, and is instead arrogant beyond belief) – instead, she manages to be so bitterly horrible that she nearly destroys Becky’s wedding, all whilst bullying her friend behind her back. Regan does have two friends, Gena (Lizzy Caplan) and Katie (Isla Fisher), but although Gena is sarcastic and Katie is ditzy, neither could be called comic-relief (because that implies the existence of moments of actual comedy), and both are exactly as awful as Regan is. There’s no happy ending, there’s no laughs, but thankfully this torturous experience only lasted ninety minutes.
Bachelorette is a film directed by Leslye Headlund and is based on her play of the same name. The plot of the film is pretty simple: Becky is getting married and on the eve of her wedding her friends Regan, Gena and Katie come together for her bachelorette party. After bullying Becky in a variety of ways, including but not limited to: discussing Katie’s eating disorder at her wedding rehearsal, getting a stripper that calls her “Pig Face” (the same name she was ridiculed with in high school), assuming that because Katie is larger that the only way she was able to get a man was because her vagina must be “magic”, and destroying her wedding dress after Katie and Regan both get inside it to ridicule its size, the trio of witches have one shining moment of humanity and realise that they had better go and get the wedding dress fixed before it’s too late. The film follows them as they trek across New York at night, dragging the ripped remnants of the dress behind them, half-heartedly attempting to fix it in-between partying and having sex.
Don’t worry, the horribleness is not reserved exclusively for the women. All of the men (except for a guy called Joe) are awful too. James Marsden, as Regan’s “love interest” Trevor, is possibly the worst character in the entire film, although that is a difficult distinction to make. Even Adam Scott, who plays Gena’s ex-boyfriend Clyde, is awful – and that is honestly painful for me to write, because I love Adam Scott.
There are only two positive characters in the film: poor Becky, and Joe (Kyle Bornheimer), who really only does the bare-minimum (nobody should be “rewarded” for not sleeping with someone when they are too drunk to consent – that’s not “being a good person”, that’s just “being a person”) but because everyone else is so abhorrent, he essentially comes across as the Greatest Guy in the World.
Bachelorette not only has a terrible plot and terrible characters, it’s also a terrible comedy. Fifteen minutes into the film I made a note saying that I hadn’t laughed once, and that never changed. There is absolutely no humour in this film. Not one single joke is funny. That’s probably because most of the jokes are about things that aren’t funny: drug addiction, suicide, people’s weight and eating habits, eating disorders, abortion, sex work, and people with an intellectual disability. The film doesn’t even go from bad to worse, it just starts as bad as anything possibly could be and stays there for it’s entire run-time.
Look, there are heaps of successful films where the male characters get to go around being gross train-wrecks and it’s viewed as endearing and part of the comedy (something that instantly comes to mind is Jonah Hill’s character in Superbad – well, basically just any male lead in a Judd Apatow flick), and I appreciate that this time around they were doing that same thing with women. Unfortunately, though, it doesn’t work. And no, not because it’s women and I’m clutching my pearls thinking that women shouldn’t be saying or doing these things (women can do whatever the hell they want), but Bachelorette doesn’t work because it doesn’t complete the Apatow formula. The women in Bachelorette don’t really learn any lessons, and they are all completely mean-spirited. Seth learns an important lesson about friendship and respecting women at the end of Superbad, and Ben grows up and stops being selfish at the end of Knocked Up. They’re humour is also never totally cruel, like it is in this film. At the end of Bachelorette the women are still bullying Becky and they have made virtually zero progress towards being better human beings. The film ends with these three awful women having learned nothing and there apparently being no consequences for their terrible actions.
I will end this write-up by saying one nice thing about Bachelorette, because there is only one nice thing about it (apart from the fact it only goes for ninety minutes). The acting in the film is very good. Every actor does their absolute best at making their character so ridiculously unlikeable that you’re squirming in your seat watching them destroy everything more and more each second. Dunst, Caplan and Fisher do a particularly good job of being abhorrent. There. That’s my one nice thing.
So, if you couldn’t tell already, I don’t think the film Bachelorette is very good. I’d even go so far as to say it is not only one of the worst things I have watched this year (and keep in mind I originally wrote this in March), it is one of the worst things I have watched in my entire life. Bachelorette is a film that claims to be a comedy but is really a series of evidence as to why its characters should not only never get married but never have contact with any members of society ever again. You should definitely avoid it.
BEST BITS
- I already said my one nice thing about this film. I’m not saying it again, and there’s nothing else to say.
WORST BITS
- The shitty excuse for “comedy”. Good comedy should never be at the expense of anyone else or make anyone else feel awful.
- The total waste of a great ensemble cast.
FINAL RATING: 2/10
More like this: Should You Watch The Wrong Missy?
